In the
Gaelic Gart is a field and Cos is a hollow -
so Gartcosh could be the field in the
hollow. In the mid 1800s Gartcosh was a just a few
scattered farms and houses - but it
had a railway station! The
railway was built to transport coal to
Glasgow and by 1837 there were three stopping
places - including to one at Gartcosh.
There were a number of small mines quite
near to the station. Because there was
very little traffic the station was very
basic and did not have the luxury of a
waiting room or a platform.. The farms
in the area included Gartcosh farm, Johnston
farm, Whitehill, Croftfoot, Heathfield and
the estate of Woodneuk.

In 1863 the
Gartcosh Fireclay Works was established by
James Binnie.(on
the site where John G Russel had a container
base but is now a housing estate known as
Heathfield Park). Although mostly
concerned with firebrick manufacture,
during the early years its output was
much more varied, extending to garden
vases and pedestals, garden edges,
fountains, chimney cans, roof tiles,
cattle troughs, sewage pipes and other
products. It was one of a group of such
businesses in the area, with others at Cardowan, Garnkirk, Heathfield and
Glenboig.Gartcosh Fireclay Works
eventually closed down in the 1950s,
when local supplies of fireclay were
exhausted.

The village of Gartcosh owes its
existence mainly to the steelworks that for so
long dominated the local landscape.
In the 1865
William Gray decided to take advantage of
the railway and he started an Ironworks. The
works were originally called Woodneuk Iron
Works - it was probably built on the
Woodneuk estate. William Gray was in
partnership with Archibald and James
Gray, all from Coatbridge. The firm who operated the
ironworks were Grays and Watson. James Gray retired in 1865 but Archibald continued the partnership with William
Watson.

In 1866 the works had 10 puddling furnaces, 2 heating furnaces
and a rolling mill. However the firm got
into difficulties and, in
sequestration, was offered for sale at
4500 in November 1866. There were no
takers but were re offered in 1867 and was
bought by E & W Smith from Glasgow for
4250. The Smith brothers
intended to exploit a new process for making
steel from pig iron that had been invented
by Robert Miller.

They formed
the Gartcosh Iron & Steel Co. In 1871
this company went into sequestration and
was taken over in 1872 by Smith & McLean
under whose ownership it developed into
an important steelworks.
(Smith &
McLean were merchants, manufacturers,
galvanizers, steel and iron plate and sheet
rollers. They owned Clyde Galvanizing
Works at Mavisbank and Port Glasgow, the
Iron & steel works at Milnwood and
Gartcosh Rolling Mills and Iron & Steel
Works.)

During the late 1890s and
early 1900s Smith & McLean provided new
brick-built houses for their workers in Lochend Road and plots immediately
adjacent. Two of the terraces were named
McLean Place and Smith Terrace, after
the firm. To a large extent they
were occupied by migrants from the
Midlands of England, with a few from
South Wales. Gartcosh was for many years
notable for the number of English
surnames in evidence.

Lochend Road and Hall

Gartcosh Steelworks eventually
passed into the ownership of Colvilles
Ltd, who opened a cold reduction steel
strip mill at Gartcosh in 1963, in
conjunction with their larger operation
at Ravenscraig, near Motherwell. Despite
a high-profile campaign to save it,
Gartcosh Strip Mill was eventually
closed by the British Steel Corporation
in 1986. By that date the former Smith
8s McLean houses in Lochend Road had
already gone, replaced by a new housing
development in the Mowbray Avenue/Eastgate
vicinity.

In the
early 1870s warrants were issued for
the arrest of a number of workers, at
Gartcosh, for desertion of service. It
appeared they had gone on strike because the
owners had stopped the beer cart from
delivering the usual supplies to the
men. They had instead sent two barrels
of sour milk!

By 1930
Colvilles had acquired the majority of
ordinary shares in Smith & McLean
Ltd. By 1953 they had acquired
the whole share capital. In
conjunction with their strip mill at
Ravenscraig, Colvilles set up a cold
reduction steel mill which went into
production in January 1963.

By 1986
British Steel had closed the Gartcosh
Steelworks.

In May 2005, Gartcosh
railway station was built at a cost of
approximately 3m. The station is on the
line which is served by Glasgow's Queen
Street Station to the West and by
Falkirk to the North-east.